Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to the NN Group Annual General Meeting. On behalf of my colleagues in the Supervisory Board and the Management Board, I hope that you're all doing well. I would like to officially open today's meeting, which is, again, a hybrid event. We are presenting and broadcasting to you from our office in The Hague. Welcome to our shareholders present in the room with us here, and also to those joining us virtually. With me here today are Hélène Vletter-van Dort, Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board, and Chair of the Supervisory Board's Remuneration Committee; NN Group CEO, David Knibbe; and NN Group CFO, Annemiek van Melick. I'd also like to introduce you to Janet Stuijt, Company Secretary and member of the Management Board as General Counsel. Janet is here. All other members of the Supervisory Board and Management Board are either in the room or following the meeting via the webcast. I'm pleased to welcome and introduce you to two other guests. First, our external auditor, Dreek Korf, representing KPMG, and second, our notary, Manon Cremers of Stibbe, who will cast all votes on the basis of the electronic proxies with voting instructions granted to her. Before we start, I'd also like to give a special welcome to the representative of NN Group's Central Works Council, Henk Boonstra, who's Chair of the Central Works Council, along with Derrick Stomp and Anne Hesselman. Welcome. I will chair this meeting in English, all the other speakers today will also be presenting in English. If you prefer to follow the Dutch translation of the meeting via headset and have not yet been provided with one, please raise your hand. The webcast is also available in both English and Dutch, all shareholders attending virtually will also be able to listen to the meeting in their preferred language. I have a few formal announcements before we get into the content. The shareholders have been convened in accordance with the applicable law and the company's articles of association. The general meeting is thus able to validly adopt resolutions. No shareholders have submitted proposals to be included on the agenda. At the record date, which is the 5th of May, 2023, the issued shared capital consisted of 295 million ordinary shares. At that date, 18,477,761 shares, ordinary shares, were held by NN Group itself, so no votes can be cast on these shares. Altogether, 276,522,239 votes are eligible for casting. I will inform you on the present and representative share capital prior to the first voting item. Please note, the entire meeting will be recorded in order to be able to minute the meeting. Just a few other housekeeping announcements. I'll briefly elaborate on the procedure and the order of the meeting. Shareholders were given the opportunity to submit questions on agenda items in advance of the meeting. We have not received any such questions. All shareholders who are present today may ask questions during the meeting. If you want to ask a question, please make your way to one of the microphones. Before asking your question, we ask you first to state your name and the organization you represent, if any, so that these also can be included in the minutes of this meeting. Some of the voting items today will be briefly summarized. An extensive explanation of these items is included in the convocation letter. The proposals that would be put to a vote regard the full proposals as included in the convocation letter. Similar to last year, and in line with the usual practice for hybrid meetings, votes can be cast at any time during the meeting. As you can see on your voting device or on the online voting platform, voting is already open, and you will be able to continue voting until the close of agenda item 10, which is the last voting item on the agenda. Voting results will therefore only be shown at the very end of the meeting. For reasons of efficiency, we will combine some agenda items. That means that we will first explain each of the agenda items, after which shareholders can then ask questions on any of those agenda items. For shareholders who've registered to virtually attend and vote during this meeting, a hybrid general meetings manual and frequently asked questions document has been published on our website. Shareholders who are present today in person and who have received a mobile voting device, please keep this device with you at all times and only hand it in upon departure. Instructions for the use of the mobile voting device or voting on your own personal device are included in the presentation. If you no longer are logged in or should you need help, please raise your hand so we can assist you. Shareholders are asked not to make photos, video recordings, and audio recordings during this meeting. Lastly, can I please ask everyone in the room to put their phone on silent mode? Short pause for that. Let me now turn to the first matter on the agenda, which is agenda item 2. Here, I'd like to refer to the annual report of 2022, as previously published. I'd like to give the floor to David Knibbe, CEO of NN Group. David will discuss the annual report, and will look back on the financial year 2022, including the financial and non-financial results. He will elaborate on the progress that is made on the company's strategy, as well as its plans to address climate change. The adoption of the annual accounts for the financial year 2022, will be addressed specifically as a voting item in item 4A. David? Yes. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I thank you all for being here, either in person or virtually. It's good to see you all here, and I'm pleased to share with you the achievements of NN in 2022, as well as some words on our future plans. Last year, we were able again to demonstrate strong results, and we made significant progress on the execution of our strategy, despite the volatile economic and geopolitical environment. After the COVID-19 pandemic came to an end, the world was confronted with a series of developments, such as the war in the Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, and high inflation. Earlier this year, the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, and this has all impacted many people's lives. It also had an effect on the economic outlook for the coming years and the prosperity of our customers, our employees, and societies at large. This creates a dynamic and complex environment which requires adaptation. Recent years have shown that NN Group is able to deal with the high levels of uncertainty. Our business model is relatively resistant to volatility, and inflation risk is limited and hedged to a large extent. We have a well-diversified risk profile for our investments in insurance activities. Furthermore, our strategy remains well aligned with long-term market trends, creating opportunities for growth, and this enables us to stay fully committed to supporting our customers and other stakeholders in navigating the change and the uncertainty that they might face. Now, let's look at our performance in 2022. Our purpose is to help people care for what matters most to them, and it's our ambition to become an industry leader known for customer engagement, talented people, and our role in society. Over the past years, we have continued to make progress towards this long-term ambition. On customers, we maintained our solid Net Promoter Score. In 8 out of 11 Dutch and international businesses, we scored on or above market average. We are constantly looking for ways to better serve our customers during the most important moments in life. For example, when planning for retirement or when buying a home. On our people, especially in today's very competitive labor market, we are pleased with the high level of engagement of our colleagues, as reflected by an increased score of 7.9. For the first time, the number of women in senior management positions has reached 40%. When it comes to our society and environmental targets, we also took important steps. For example, we committed to the net zero targets in our first Climate Action Plan, on which I will elaborate later. In addition, we started the NN Social Innovation Fund. With an initial EUR 5 million of investments, the fund is aimed at supporting early-stage social enterprises focused on the increasing financial, physical, and mental well-being. On our commercial and financial performance, we continued to deliver solid results in 2022 based on our strong market positions, our diverse business footprint, and a robust balance sheet. Operating capital generation or OCG, which is our main financial performance metric, increased by 8% in 2022, compared with 2021, to more than EUR 1.7 billion, also exceeding our 2023 target of EUR 1.5 billion. This was driven by a strong business performance and supported by higher interest rates. We have seen that uncertainties such as the pandemic or inflation, have heightened customers' awareness of risk and vulnerability, leading to a greater demand for long-term health and protection products, particularly in markets with low insurance rates. The high level of inflation is affecting people's disposable income, however, resulting in short-term pressure on sales. Nevertheless, we are confident that the structural demand for the protection products in Europe will continue to result in sales growth over time. Our balance sheet remains strong, with a Solvency II ratio of 197% at year-end 2022. This gives us ample financial flexibility and also allows to continue delivering attractive capital returns to shareholders. We have proposed a final dividend of EUR 1.79 per ordinary share, bringing the total 2022 dividend to EUR 2.79. This is an increase of 12% on 2021. We also announced a new share buyback program for the amount of EUR 250 million. In November last year, we shared new ambitious targets with the market, underscoring our commitment towards long-term value creation for all stakeholders. We increased our OCG, or operating capital generation, target to EUR 1.8 billion in 2025, and we expect a mid-single-digit growth of free cash flow. To achieve this, we focused growing the underlying business based on our strategic targets around customer, people, and society. Our first strategic target is about customer satisfaction, which we measure based on Net Promoter Scores. The goal is to significantly outperform the competition in NPS. We aim to do this by providing customers with a flawless digital and hassle-free experience. To achieve this, we offer an omni-channel environment that combines digital channels with proactive personal advice when needed. We believe that this approach will help us to meet our customer needs more effectively. Furthermore, we have two strategic targets around people. The first on employee engagement. We intend to outperform the sector in engagement, and the second on diversity in senior management positions. Although we have met our target of 40% women in senior positions, this remains an important focus point for us. We want to retain, attract the talent that we need for the future. This means investing in technical reskilling as well as upskilling. We also put additional emphasis on the efforts in the area of diversity and inclusion, so our employee base reflects our customer base. Thirdly, our targets reflect our community activities as well as the efforts in the area of climate change. With our work in the communities, we aim to support 1 million people with their financial, physical, and mental well-being by 2025. When it comes to our impact on the environment, we take the role we can play in combating climate change very seriously. We aim for net zero emissions across the entire business, so in our investment portfolio, underwriting portfolio, and in our operations. In our operations. Let's look at the specific climate actions we are taking on the next slide. This is our roadmap towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions. As an insurer, we're mostly exposed to the risk of climate change through both our investments and underwriting activities. From the perspective of society in general, there is progress. This is not going fast enough, and it will be a challenge to reach the targets of the Paris Agreement, despite all the efforts in emission reduction and new technology. There's a lot of potential for business to contribute more, which goes for NN as well. Our efforts are focused on our net zero strategy. Our climate action plan outlines a clear roadmap to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in our own operations by 2040. In our investments and insurance underwriting by 2050. We are more than doubling investments in climate solutions, aiming to invest an additional EUR 6 billion by 2030. Our progress so far is that we have invested EUR 3 billion as part of the EUR 6 billion, and this comes on top of the existing EUR 5 billion that we already invested in climate solutions. In August 2022, NN raised EUR 500 million of green bonds in the first issue under our sustainable bond framework to finance green and social projects, and another EUR 1 billion of green bonds was raised in April this year. We are also taking steps to address biodiversity, as the loss of biodiversity heavily impacts ecosystems and human life. In October 2022, we signed the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, and we will set targets and take further actions in the coming years. In addition to our net zero strategy, we are taking steps to help our customers reduce their carbon footprint and adopt more sustainable practices. For example, by not automatically replacing for new when we receive damage claims, but instead using recycled materials, or by helping our mortgages to make their homes more sustainable via our label, Woonnu. Looking ahead, we have a strong foundation for long-term sustainable growth. As a company with a history that stretches back more than 175 years, we have weathered many storms, and we will continue to do so with the same sense of perspective, long-term view, and with the responsibility that has guided us so far. We believe the insurance industry is a vital part of society, and it's our goal to help ensure that NN, our people, and the customers we serve, and the communities in which we operate, remain financially healthy and prosperous for years to come. In closing, I would like to extend my gratitude to all of you, our shareholders, for the continued support and confidence in NN. Again, thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to a good dialogue with you during this meeting, as well in the year ahead. Thank you. Thank you, David. We'll shortly open up for questions on this item. In order to facilitate a healthy exchange and a structured process, what we'd like to do is take all questions first. We'll respond to the questions, and then we'll open it up for follow-up questions. I'd like to ask the speakers once again to please state your name, the organization you represent, if any. Please ask your questions, and then allow the following question to be posed. Please, sir. Yes, my name is Gillian Gaillard. I work for PGGM. I have two questions, one concerning climate, your climate action plan. Second one concerning biodiversity. My first question is actually twofold. In July, NN's going to update its climate action plan. I was wondering what part of the insurance portfolio is in scope, and whether you're also considering the SBTI net zero finance standard when setting targets, and if you're considering submitting those targets to SBTI as well? Shall I continue with my second question? Yes, please. Right. It's about the impact assessment of biodiversity. I'm very glad that NN signed the Finance for Biodiversity pledge. Congratulations on that. Could you give us an update where you stand with respect to setting targets and assessing impact? Thank you very much. Are there other questions regarding the annual report? Yes, please. We'll give a chance for follow-up. Please have a seat, but if we don't know how many questions there'll be. Thank you. No problem. We have time. We're looking forward to your question, and we're interested. My name is Bruning. I'm a retail shareholder from Rotterdam. Nowadays, I read a lot, and I tamper a bit with artificial intelligence, things like that. I'm quite surprised about all the possibilities of AI, so much more than more possibilities than in the past, and I would like to hear how this could impact your long-term strategy, because I think this is so revolutionary that it is some food for thought, and you have to take it seriously. Once again, if you'll state your name and the organization you're representing. Good morning. I'm Jasper Blom, of Friends of the Earth, the Netherlands. If you don't mind, I will ask my question in Dutch. Sure. I'm here also on behalf of 40,000 other Dutch nationals that have sent the company an encouragement to establish an ambitious climate policy. I'm glad that we're able to exchange some ideas with you about the strategic, the strategy of NN. I'm worried about climate change. We can read about the impact every day in the news. There is a big impact, particularly in the Global South. It's urgent that we take action because this is a very unfair situation. We need to limit it. Nationale-Nederland, the NN Group, has an important role to play. Not only is this a moral obligation, of course, it's a matter of governance, because the NN Group is risk as an insurance company. NN Group, with its finance emissions, is contributing considerably to emissions. NN is part of the campaign of Milieudefensie to encourage companies to establish an ambitious climate policy. A legal preliminary investigation is part and parcel of this campaign. This leads me to my questions. I hope you can answer my question with a clear yes or no. My question is, will NN Group, in 2030, at the very least, reduce its CO2 emissions in absolute terms by 45% of 2030 as compared to 2019? Thank you. Thijs Scholten is my name. I'm here on behalf of the Association for Investors in Sustainable Development. Every year, we engage with your company. This year, again, we had an excellent conversation with your company. We analyzed your annual report. We came up with 3 questions. Can I ask all these three questions in one go? Yes. First question, relating biodiversity. I'd like to thank you that you've shown your climate roadmap, and you've already committed to the fact that NN Group is going to establish biodiversity goals. You're doing well in terms of biodiversity and engagement, but in your sustainable investment report, biodiversity only appears twice. There is a possibility to increase your role in terms of biodiversity in your investments, and we would like to hear from you which specific steps NN Group is going to take in the field of biodiversity. Second question, working conditions in the supply chain. We see that NN is taking great strides, serious strides, to make sure that the working conditions in the NN's supply chain are being guaranteed. It strikes us, especially yesterday, that the European Union is developing the CSDDD, which was approved by the European Parliament yesterday, and at this point in time, they're sorting out the last details and the role that financial parties play in this context. We're curious to hear from you which steps NN Group is taking right now to make sure that the due diligence process of the NN Group is aligned with the CSDDD. Last question concerns a new subject, the lobbying work of NN Group. Here, the VBDO sees that NN Group is reporting clearly about membership of industrial organizations and overall costs the NN Group has in terms of investment in or expenditure in industrial organizations. We are looking forward to a clear view, a vision of NN Group, what the costs are of lobbying for NN Group, and how NN Group views membership of certain industrial organizations. InfluenceMap shows that 89% of European industrial organizations do not act in line with the Europe, with the Paris Agreement. It could be that indirectly, through the membership of the Association of Insurance Companies, VNO-NCW, that it may lobby against the climate goals. We would request you to include more information about lobbying in next year's annual report, and also the costs involved and how NN Group views certain industrial organizations. Thank you very much for that. Yeah. Good morning. My name is Kaynef. I speak on behalf of VEB. I think it's very efficient indeed, to group all the questions together. Let's also hope that the answering is effective as well. You are best. I've got plenty of questions, so you will stop. Also, I've got questions to the supervisory board. Do you also want to include them in this round? Yes, please. Okay, good. Well, let's first start with the executive part. When running a company, also an insurance company, there are a couple of things which are very important, one thing which is on top of every list of every serious company is customer satisfaction. If you deliver good products, especially also in an efficient way to your customers, in the end, those customers are happy, they will remain customer, they buy again, and so on and so on. Like in previous years, I've had some critical comments about your performance, the company's performance in customer satisfaction, the many ways of measuring it, in the end, well, it was remarkable to see that in the letter of the executive, of the CEO, he was rather neutral about the performance relating to customer satisfaction, well, as your tone of voice in your supervisory board was more critical. Actually, if I have to choose sides, I would choose your side, 'cause I think there are reasons to be concerned about the progress in customer satisfaction as far as NN Group is concerned. If I could just raise one statistic, I believe that, comparing to 2021, the relative customer satisfaction improved in 2022 in 3 business units, dropped in 8 business units. This is more than concerning, it seems to me. I was wondering, what is the reason for the change of tone of voice between the executives and the non-executives, or have I been misinterpreting the statistic? Let me also include a compliment. I hope you don't count this as a question, a compliment, since another thing which is important in running a company is to make sure your employees are not only competent, but motivated. I applaud your progress, which you've been making in your employee satisfaction or engagement. I think that's very important, especially in a time and era where it's more difficult to attract the right level of people for every company. We are suffering as well as VEB with that one. I'm sure you've got the challenges there as well. If your current employees are happy and engaged, for sure, that's a big plus as well, also helping customers and also returning some benefits for us as shareholders. Now, a strategic question, a very different point. If an outsider would look at NN Group and look at your portfolio, you got your insurance business, life insurance in Holland, non-life Holland, you got Japan, I don't know where that is coming from, you got the rest of Europe insurance, also you got a bank. Now, every year, I'm wondering, how does that make sense? Is there any kind of leverage, any kind of benefits, any kind of efficiency? Wouldn't it make more sense to do something like ASR, your competitor in Holland has done, be fully focused with all insurance activities on one country, or maybe a very different approach, we as NN Group, we are only focused on life insurance, and we drop the rest? I was wondering how you're considering your own portfolio. Is it just a matter of historically, this is the portfolio we have, and we make the best out of it, or are you seriously considering at some point moving into something which is more streamlined, or where there will be more benefits between the different parts of your portfolio? That's the strategic question. Especially since the Netherlands, both insurance, life insurance and non-life insurance, they are about 70 to 72% of operating profits. A reason more, is it worthwhile, the remaining 30%, to address so much management attention, so much capital? Is the growth so much in Japan? I don't think it is, what are the reasons to really keep the portfolio as it is right now? Last year, you've sold your investment management business to Goldman Sachs. I was wondering, do you regret this decision, or are you happy with it? Where does it show, where are the benefits for us so far? Are you still doing as much business with your previous business unit as you did before, or have you been moving to different asset managers instead? I was wondering about that. Finally, I've got a question and a compliment to the Supervisory Board. First, a big compliment. The first time I think I'm doing this, I've been visiting shareholder meetings for 20 years, so it's a big jubilee this year for me, probably 250 AGMs. Your report of the audit committee is the best I've seen so far, by far. I want to show this as an example to several other companies. This is the way how you report on your supervisory duties. This is really an example of many companies that they should follow this kind of report. That's excellent. However, I've got also small comments. You've got a skill matrix. You name it differently, but on page 93, you've got a list of skills which are needed within your board, of the supervisory board members. Of course, it's impossible that one person is able to manage all those skills. It's impossible. I believe, that's what I believe, I believe it's even impossible for any person on Earth to be able to make an informed decision on all those very different topics. At some point, you have to admit, listen, I only understand half of the story, but I have trust in some of the other colleagues who are specialists in that area. Based on this trust, I say yes to this kind of decision. In the skills matrix, I've seen that every single member of the Supervisory Board is able to make an informed decision on any kind of topic, which seems very remarkable to me. I was wondering if you could reflect on that. Those are my questions. A lot. Hope I get a quality answer as well. Thank you. Other questions, please? If not, I suggest we... Oh, yes, sir. Yes, thank you. Good morning, good morning. I would like to introduce myself. My name is Johan Spreeuw. I'm a part-time shareholder since 1978. I've done some organizational work since recent, recently. I'm retired with huge construction companies on huge projects. I was a project manager, a senior project manager. NN Group is the largest risk analyzer and assurance, and a risk manager. We built, a couple of years ago, a huge infrastructural project, and that was very relevant for the Netherlands. I would like to go through a couple of ideas that refer to both things. We have climate issues with the Netherlands, with the storms, with the climate change, with the projections we made to build the constructions to keep floods from happening in the Netherlands. Those assumptions were a basis for major projects. How are we going to maintain that with a view to the climate change in the future? My question is: will the NN Group, in 2030, reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% as compared to 2019? This is only one step in the huge issues that are facing us all. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Very much appreciated. I'd like to now move to answers. I'll just follow the order that we have heard, so we'll start with questions from Mr. Gaillard from PGGM. Questions regarding updates to our climate action plan, as well as impact assessments on biodiversity, and to what extent we'll be updating our targets in the near future. David? Obviously we now have if you take a step back, so the following targets we have already set, huh? We've said that we will align with Paris, net zero for our operations, our own operations, what we call Scope 1 and 2, and then also for our insurance portfolio and our investment portfolio. That is 2050, that is obviously far away still. We also set interim targets for 2025 and 2030. For 2025, on our own operations, 35% reduction, 70% reduction in 2030, and then neutral by 2040. In our case, I mean, we're not a production company, so this is mainly buildings, travel. It's important to do, but obviously it's not the biggest part of our scope. That's today for that. We have set a target of 25% reduction of greenhouse gases for our corporate investment portfolio, so the corporate bonds, corporate equity, these type of investments, this is what we call Scope 3, and 45% by 2030. That's what we're working on. Additionally, you've seen that also in the roadmap, obviously, this is not the full scope. There's other scopes in what we call Scope 3, that you can think about, which is, for example, the insurance portfolio. To what extent can we influence greenhouse gas emissions of houses that have a mortgage from us, for example? What you've seen in the roadmap is that we're currently working on also targets for the mortgage portfolio to see. That is quite complex because you need to measure output of a house. I think half the houses in the Netherlands, for example, have an energy label, but the other ones don't, and even these energy labels don't tell the full story. I mean, if somebody has a jacuzzi in their backyard, there's quite some emissions, but we don't necessarily see that showing up. The measurement is still complex, but I think we're making real progress, and I expect also that in the coming period, that we will also announce a target for the, let's say, for the mortgage investment portfolio. That still remains the government bond, which is obviously also a large investment. Then you have to go, you know, you're dealing with French government bonds or German or Dutch. There, the thinking is, and again, this is a collective action where we're seeing: How do you measure this output? And, you know, over time, we also need to set targets there. That's the, let's say, the work in progress. I think the largest part, like I said, the, on the corporate portfolio and around footprint is already clear in terms of target and execution. Now, that's the scope. Insurance, going back to the question, insurance will come in scope but is not yet. That is, as I said, for example, on housing or on motor insurance, we are working on this. We will come out with targets, but these are not yet part of the targets that we have set. I mean, the plan on July, difficult question, of course, because, you know, we're still working on the plan, and I don't think this is the moment to fully disclose, you know, what we will be announcing in July. That still needs to go through proper governance. I can assure you, and you've seen it also in the roadmap, we continue to make progress here. You will also see that in the July plan that we will that we will submit. I think the next question was on AI? I think actually,... In fact, assessment on biodiversity. Oh, yeah. Target set. Yeah, biodiversity. Yeah, biodiversity, I think, I mean, it's a very important topic. The intention for it is growing, and rightly so. I mean, I think, hey, the concern obviously is that the more we have a disturbance of biodiversity and ecosystems, you know, could become very disruptive for the world, for food, for all sorts of other impacts. I think the honest answer is the thinking in terms of biodiversity is not as advanced yet as it has been around greenhouse gases and the targets that we have set there. This is also the reason why we signed this pledge on the biodiversity. That means that we're currently working on how do we measure in all of our activities, what is actually, you know, hurting biodiversity, and what activities do we have that actually support a better biodiversity? A combination of that, we will set targets on. That's why we're on in all these working groups, and we expect next year also to be to provide insight into how we plan to plan to do this. It doesn't mean that we do nothing in the meantime. I mean, there is there's initiatives around clean water and other things that we already signed on to, and we support, but the full scope of biodiversity, we will give more insight into in 2024. Please, small follow-up. Yes. for the first question. I also asked whether NN would consider submitting the updated climate plan to SBTI? Yeah. Yeah, like, well, trying to get away from that one. Yes, in July, we will come out with that, and obviously, we're looking at all these measurements because there is a lot out there. I think there's some really good measurements. I think we also need to see how well we can apply this to our business. We really wanna avoid also complying with things and later on, having to come back and say: You know, this might not be, our interpretation was different. This is certainly something that we're looking at, but you're gonna have to wait until July to- Yeah. to see it. We'll wait, but we'll encourage you to do so. Yes. Noted. Thank you. Noted. Yeah. Thank you. David, I hope I pronounced this correctly, from, here, Bruning, a question regarding AI, indeed. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good Rotterdam question on, so what are we really doing with this? It is a very big topic, and not just because it's big in the news now. I think the impact of AI and data is very substantial, and so we launched already a few years, our own internal policy on AI. Part of the question obviously, is can you do it? Can you technically do it? These algorithms have been there since the 60s. There's a technical question: Do you have the right data, and can you do it? More importantly, there's also another question, which is very clear in our policy: Do we want to? Because... I think that's also the public debate now. Some of the things that AI can do, you can question from a role of society as a company, do we even want to do this? We have a separate debate on the technical side, but also internally on our policy. Do we want to apply certain AI tooling or not? If you look at what we do today, to be honest, I think we're quite advanced in this. We have, for example, our own ChatGPT in our own hosted environment, eh? This is the existing ChatGPT, but hosted in our own NN environment. Our colleagues can use that. A lot is just for personal efficiency. There's questions you can ask. There's even draft press releases, speeches, information you can get. There is a topic around personal efficiency. There's around 2,000 people already on that in our own secure environment, because it's very important for us that whatever we do in that environment is not channeled back to any other provider, let's say, that we work with. That is one topic where it is important. An example is, for example, where we use a speech-to-text. When customers call us, you get You know, when the call is over, you wanna make a few notes on that you know what has been agreed with this customer, AI tooling can help already draft some of the text so that an employee then can automatically just check it instead of having to write everything themselves. That creates efficiency. I think coding is a real topic. Some of the insurance companies have older systems. There's always a question on how well can you still find IT people. I think the advantages in coding from AI look very substantial. I think all in all, the impact is big. That's why I also mentioned in my speech, we need to significantly upskill our own colleagues as well, including ourselves. I'm currently also going through a training. There's a real upskilling here. I think the good news is so far, the experience has been it is possible. We'll have to look at our around talent base, but it is possible also to upskill. I do think the impact will be significant over over time. David, I think next question was from Mr. Blom, here, Blom, from the Friends of the Earth, from Milieudefensie, regarding climate change and our commitment to the reduction commitments. Yeah. I'd like to just state we share your concerns. I know that doesn't surprise you, but I think it's important to note. Thank you for sharing them with us. Yeah. David, over to you. Indeed. I think we share the concerns. We obviously also see what's happening. We all see that when you live in society, but also from the insurance point of view, we had very bad floods in Limburg and in Germany last year. There is. It is clearly an urgent topic. I also think that we play an important role in that. That's also why you have seen that we are very serious around the commitments and the targets that we have set. Specifically, the question on the hele keten, or I guess, the full value chain, is for us, a complex question. I'm not even sure what is meant with exactly that. What I have tried to elaborate on in the beginning is we set targets on our own, Scope 1 and 2, 35%, if I take 2030 as a date, we plan to reduce our emissions with 70% on our own scope. For Scope 3, today, it is on the corporate investment portfolio, where we save 45%. We also need to say that's not our full Scope 3. As I said, we're still working on insurance, we're working on the mortgage portfolio. There's more work that we'll do, and in the coming period, we will continue to strengthen our commitment there. Thank you. I think we can go to the questions from Mr. Scholten, from the VBDO. Comments on biodiversity. What concrete steps will we take in the future? Our influence on work situations and our value chain. Yep. -specific reference to something that has just now been issued, the, CSDDD from Europe, so how we will think about that and respond. Finally, a couple of questions regarding our lobby activities, and what he can expect from us in terms of our vision on lobbying in our next annual report. Yep. Yeah. I think I tried to cover on biodiversity, important topic. We'll come back in 2024 with more progress on how we plan to do this. I think working conditions is an important topic. When we talk about engagement with companies, obviously, there's a lot of attention for greenhouse gases and emissions, and rightly so. We engage on a lot more. Living wages is an important topic that we also engage on with companies, sometimes together, sometimes individually. I also see some real progress there. I think a very good example is that we've been actively engaging with the cacao or chocolate industry on three topics, which is around child labor, it's around access to... to access to education, and overall, paying what we call living wages, on those 3 elements. If we look at the progress, then, we were around 43% of the companies that we were engaging with, were actually meeting the 3 criteria. That has moved up to over 70% since last year. We do see that engaging also on broader topics can work, not always, but it is an important topic, and it is part of our engagement scope, which is clearly broader than just the, let's say, the greenhouse gas and the climate climate impact. I cannot answer the question on CSDDD yet. What exactly-- I mean, that just recently came out. We will for sure, take a look at it and see whether we can incorporate that in our engagement with our, let's say our, the companies that we invest in. Yeah. On lobbying, yes, we have disclosed as much information as we can. We are not, I would say, the individual lobbying is not-- We don't hire individual lobby firms to lobby for NN, so that is all very limited. What we do is we work through associations. In the Netherlands, Verbond van Verzekeraars, it could be VNO-NCW in the Netherlands, and there's other European, Insurance Europe. There's other European groups where we are part of. The ones that we are in, we take a very active role. There's many of these lobby organizations, the ones that we're in, we take a very active role. For example, Verbond van Verzekeraars is currently chaired by Tjeerd Bosklopper, my colleague. Even the Life board is Life from Verbond, is also chaired by an NN person. I think I'm personally quite involved in VNO-NCW. I'm not so concerned that we are part of lobbying efforts where, you know, there would be things that are being lobbied on that we disagree with. The ones that we are participating, we take a very active role. There is always a bit of give and take in these lobby organizations. You cannot always get what you want, but on important topics, we're always very aligned and involved in these things. We'll continue to, you know, we'll continue to report on that, see where we can inform you even more next year. I just want to manage your expectation. There isn't much more than these branch organizations that we are that we are part of. Thank you, David. We'll now go to the questions from Mr. Kienia, from the FEBE. Those questions, as well as a few comments, which we'll no doubt respond to all. I think first, probably best if we cover the questions that I think were directed toward you, and then I'll come back and address the issues that were directed to the supervisory board. What I picked up is a little bit of interpretation of our numbers regarding where we are vis-à-vis our client relationships. I understand the question, so I'm also looking forward to the answer. We ask the same question from time to time. A compliment on employee engagement. Please don't step over that. I think it's quite important that we also demonstrate that here. Anyway, a question regarding our portfolio, strategic question as you placed it. If I summarize it, I won't repeat it: Does our portfolio make sense? Are we the best owner? Finally, a question on having sold NN IP, and meanwhile, about a year ago, what do we think about that decision now, and how can we see the benefits for the NN Group? Yep. Yeah, customer satisfaction. Yeah, interesting you picked that up. I, to be honest, I didn't, but I don't think we are misaligned there. There is always a kind of a, you know, the perspective of glass half full or glass half empty. We have set a very clear target on 2025. We want to significantly outperform the market on customer satisfaction. For 2023, that meant that we set a target that we want to be in line with the market. The reality was that in many of the markets, we were below. If I look at where we are today in 2022, as we said, we said 8 out of 11 markets, we are currently on or above. Now, numbers move, and, you know, there's many things that influence customer satisfaction. Some we influence, some we don't. Hedda could also. It's also a relative game. What I'm pleased with is the progress that we have seen. In 8 out of 11 is progress. I've seen, obviously, also the look through for Q1, and we continue to see a positive trend. That is the good news. Reality is also, you know, if we want to significantly outperform, that means not a little bit, but significantly, that's still quite a way to go, given that 2025 is not that far away. I think it's a. Therefore, we're, you know, it's an important target. We're focused on it, but it's not one that is clearly already, you know, in the bag. This is still will require a lot of work from all of us to achieve that. we'll continue to steer on it, and we'll continue to report on it, the progress also going forward. What is very clear is that the underlying trend is positive, and whether that is, first of all, we need to sustain that, and it also needs to ultimately translate into significantly outperform. I mean, we have examples in markets where we're a little bit better than the competition, but we don't count it because it needs to be significantly above. Thank you for the compliment on engagement. It is very important. I think, when we launched this in 19, you know, it wasn't as common. I think now, I mean, we all see tight labor markets, how important it is that you keep talent in your company, and that they're engaged on it. It is something that we continue to work on. On the portfolio, no, the portfolio, and you've probably seen it, is something that we very actively manage. If you go back a few steps, we had, for example, we divested Bulgaria, we have divested a closed book in Belgium. I will come back on NN IP, obviously, where we also divested an investment partners to Goldman Sachs, and we invested a lot. Hey, we acquired Vivat, we acquired a while ago, Aegon Czech and Slovak. More recently, we acquired MetLife in Greece and in Poland. It's what we call very active portfolio management. We continue to ask ourselves the question: Are we the right owner of a business? That is essentially two criteria. One is the unit itself needs to make a good return, so by itself, it needs to deliver results. The second criteria is, does it add also to, strategically to the group? To name a few, you mentioned NN Bank, for example. NN Bank is a very substantial bank in the Netherlands. It's very important for us in order to originate mortgages, which is an important part. It also brings in a lot of savings customers for us, and these savings customers are very digital, they're very online, they're constantly on their app and their portal, and it creates a lot of digital traffic that also creates opportunities for other business units. The bank is very integrated there. We don't advertise the bank. We call it all Nationale-Nederlanden, but it is a very integrated part of the propositions that we offer, and we've seen that customers also don't care whether it's a bank or an insurance. They just want a savings product, a mortgage, or a pension product. You mentioned Japan. You said, "How did that happen?" Well, that happened more than 30 years ago. Japan has been part of NN Group more than 30 years ago. We have a very strong position in the protection space, in the SME space. It's a very large market in that space, the corporate life space. We're a top three player, so we're actually very proud of our Japanese unit. On the question, overall portfolio, yes, we wanna remain an international company. We think the mix of a strong Dutch business combined with international markets creates a very good platform for growth. It also creates diversification effects, it creates scale. We focus on life protection, mostly in those markets, so we also see synergies there. So the overall aim is to maintain an international footprint, and you might have seen also in the targets for 2025, that there's a significant step up in growth of capital generation for Europe also. Europe is becoming more and more substantial versus the Netherlands, if you look at the development of the targets. There was a question now on GSAM: Do you regret it? No, no. I think in hindsight, the deal was well-timed, this was not about timing. This was about a strategic view, that we were convinced that NN IP, given the size that we have in this global consolidation of asset managers, who struggle to be very successful in growing by themselves. That was the angle of NN IP. It created for us the opportunity, you're asking: Where can we see that? It created for us the opportunities to work with multiple asset managers based on different mandates, and also the ability to select for different products, different asset managers. So far, and that's been happening. We work with over 10 asset managers. GSAM or NN IP is still obviously our largest partner, but we do work with other asset managers. But over time, you know how this goes. These mandates are typically 3 years, and so we will need to continue to evaluate whether we have the best asset manager for our products, and that's both for our customers, and we have investment products for customers, and for our own general accounts. Overall, we're happy with the progress and the benefits that it's bringing. On the skill set of the supervisory board, I am also very curious. Let me listen to that. Maybe we should ask him first. Let me just follow up on the question about are we satisfied with the decisions held in NN IP? As David just indicated, in hindsight, the timing looks pretty good. You never know that upfront. The economics associated with the transaction, we were also, from a supervisory perspective, happy with. I can tell you it wasn't a difficult decision from an economic point of view. The primary reason we took that decision, and it continues to be the primary thing we're looking for today, is how to best position ourselves to provide the most attractive products and services to our clients. It was an overriding strategic decision. We think through the structure that we set up now, both the relationship with GSAM, but also the possibility to use other providers, that we put ourselves in a position to offer the best products and services to our clients. Before I get into the skill set of the supervisory board, which I certainly will come back to, let me first compliment you on your style. I think it's actually quite constructive to have questions, critical questions, but also where you see something that you appreciate, that you also note that. I think that's a very, very healthy style. I'm going to start with the same thing. I'll compliment you on 20 years of persistence, and I would even say not just of persistence, but also effectiveness. I think having a constructive dialogue in these types of meetings, 20 years and 250 is a lot, though, but it's a compliments to you on that. Is actually exactly what we'd like to see. Compliments to you, but also thank you to you. The difference in view between Difference in standpoint is the Raad van Bestuur and the Raad van Commissarissen and with bringing to the client. As David has said, we've seen a lot of progress, but we also acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to be done. We do not want to be equal to the market. We want to be leading in the market, and we want our customers to see and experience that. We have to implement new policies. You have to go through diligence procedures that aren't necessarily the thing customers are looking to us for, but it's a part of life, and we have to do that well as well. We recognize that from time to time, there are dips, but our aspirations are high, as David has suggested, and we see the progress, but we also see that there's still work to do. As to the skills matrix, page 93 of the end report, whether or not all of us are in indeed in a position to be able to take informed decisions. A couple of things I'll say about that. When we look at ourselves, we do try to both recognize the skills but also the gaps. The whole purpose of that skill matrix is to say: what is it do we think is necessary, collectively, to be able to fulfill our role as a supervisory board? This is not rocket science, what we're doing here. In order to be an effective supervisory board member, I think it takes commitment, engagement, an open mind, an independent mind, a willingness to learn. If I think about the process that we, as a supervisory board, go through in preparing ourselves for decision-making, informing ourselves, both from management as well as from other parties, exchanging ideas amongst ourselves, I believe we indeed put ourselves in a position, all of us, to be able to make informed decisions. That does not mean to suggest that we're experts on everything, because we certainly are not. you know, the reality is when you're looking to constitute a supervisory board or any team for that matter, I think you look for diversity, and you're always looking for the proverbial... In Dutch, anyway, there's a saying, the proverbial five or even six-legged sheep. We haven't found any of those, but what we have found is we found colleagues on the board who are willing to add their experience, add their personalities, their characters, add their critical views, and complement one another. I think that collectively, then, also puts us in a position, working with the management team, to be able to come to informed decisions. Not perfect decisions, but informed. Thank you. Can I come back to the question? Yeah, please. I think we have one more question. Yeah, we do. From Mr. Spill. Well, Kienia, on behalf of EB, just to avoid that, we're becoming too friendly to each other. I've got some critical remark on your answers. All great answers, except 2. The last one, I fully agree that if you look at the skills matrix of the supervisory board as a collective, I believe, and I hope, because that's what you have as a collective, you are able to make informed decisions. Strongly doubt, still, despite your explanation, every individual on every single topic is able, even after explanation, even after commitment and a training and so on, is still being able to make an informed decision. Your business, you may say, "Well, it's not that complex." I think your business is bloody complicated from financial point of view... -or from IT point of view. I think strategically, it's much easier to understand if your IQ is above 110. I'm sure you all have that. I strongly doubt, or you may be too lenient towards yourself. Well, informed, it means, do you understand the sentence, but can you really judge whether a yes or no is a good answer? I doubt that. Maybe you're more lenient in that respect. The real criticism I'm having is on the comment of Mr. Knibbe on the customer satisfaction. Namely, that a lot of progress had been made. Literally said, "The, the trend is positive." That's what you said. I just repeat or from your own annual report, in 3, only 3 of your markets, you were above average, so better than the competition. Last year, a year earlier, you were better in five business units. That's you're lagging behind. Your NPR, NPSR scores improved in three business units. You mentioned that, but you dropped in eight business units compared to last year. The trend as far as 2021 to 2022 is not, certainly not positive. It's at best, it's a mixed bag. Finally, maybe that's a hidden question that makes me a little bit suspicious. On page 15, you say, well, I know that customer satisfaction reporting and statistics is a delicate matter. It's very difficult to get a grasp on it and to compare years and to compare business units, compare countries. I understand, I think, the challenge that is facing you. I'm not sure, however, that your solution is the right one, because you're indicating you're planning an aggregate reporting. It means you're bundling probably several business units or countries together, so we see less volatility in the results, and we can sleep much more safely and without too much being too anxious. Actually, I want to see the volatility, because then you can really pinpoint this business unit in this country, we have an issues, and then... I'm sure you'll still do this internally, but you will not provide the transparency to us as shareholders. I'm actually still concerned about becoming reporting more aggregate level. Underneath, there may be some really big issues hidden. Volatility is not the issue we're having. The issue is that you're not catching up on the competition, and you're certainly not outperforming the competition with the speed that your, that matches your own ambitions in 2025. That's my critical comment. I'm sure you find me less friendly right now, which is actually, I'm fine with that. I'm more critical than you are, it seems, as far as customer satisfaction is concerned. Okay, thank you very much. Actually, I'm not unhappy with your critical comments. Quite the contrary. That's also our role, to be critical with each other. Constructive criticism is very helpful. Again, thank you. I'll start first, and then I'll get to David on the customer satisfaction. You know what? I may surprise you, and I'll simply say, we'll look again. At the Supervisory Board, we look at that every year. We're always in the process of also benchmarking ourselves in some way or another, and looking for new members, looking at our own succession planning. I think it's a very healthy thing to do, and I'm perfectly willing that we take a good look again at the way in which we've scored ourselves on the various skill set. We'll certainly come back to you with the next report, so you'll be able to see it, and maybe we can continue the discussion. Yeah, most other companies have seen those skills metrics, and many other companies as well, they leave blanks. You should not be ashamed of yourself that you're a legal expert and you try to manage also to keep your financial knowledge up to speed, like business, from Vletter-van Dort. However, that you think IT, that's really... I know the IT myself. I've worked in IT company in the nineties. We've got an IT expert within the VEB, and we're a very simple, small organization. At some point, I have to just, I trust you because I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but I trust your. Is that an informed decision? No, it's because I trust my colleague, and it's risky, I understand that, and it's called more risky if you're running a big company like yours. I think you should not be ashamed that in this skills matrix, there are some open spots with every single individual, but as a collective, all the spots are covered for your whole Supervisory Board. I think that's what other companies are doing as well. While as your Audit Committee report is an example to other companies, maybe you can learn a little bit of modesty from other companies as far as your skills are concerned. Thank you very much. David, over to you. Yeah, I understand your conclusion. If you just judge at, there's a, the disadvantage of what we do with these targets is like a one moment in time measurement, and that's the one where we report. I think we have the luxury that we look at a lot more. For example, NPS transaction. We monitor very closely on every time a customer does a transaction with us, how does he experience that? We've seen... Over time, you know, if you have enough transactions, the relationship, NPS will also move. This takes time because unfortunately, we are in a business where we have limited customer contact. People don't call us every week. We don't have a lot of opportunities to do that then well. There's a couple of underlying trends that make me more positive than just the pin bombed in time, are you 3% above or below, which is rightly so, what you're pointing at, is that transaction NPS continues to develop well. That's 1. 2, by the way, it was also out in Dutch media. There's the broker satisfaction scores in the Netherlands. For the first time, we've seen that NN has become the number 1 insurance company, according to brokers, in the Netherlands. I haven't seen that in over a decade. In fact, there's 9 categories, and in all these categories, we were in the top 3, and then collectively, we were voted as best insurance company. I see underlying, both in transaction NPS, in distribution channels, in the interaction, I see an underlying positive trend. I, you know, as I said, you know, I've also had the luxury to see your, some of the Q1 measurements, so I have no doubt that there is a positive trend. It might not always be reflected in an NPSR, because, as I said, there's many things that influence that, and it could be, you know, if there's an election or there's something happened with banks, usually you get different people, customers suddenly give different scores. It's a fact of life. It is a subjective thing. I have no doubt that two things are true here. There is a positive trend. We still have a big step, and that's probably where we agree, we still have a big step to go towards 2025, and the positive trend is based on more than just the point in time NPS measurement. You could have the same answer for me next year, if suddenly 7 units are doing very well, that I will still be quite critical, because, you know, again, we look at more than that. I think on putting it together, it is a different reason, and I don't want to diminish some of the business units, but by just talking about 11 units, you judge the Netherlands with the same weight as Turkey. Turkey is a very small operation, the Netherlands is very big. That's why we said, you know, it's also good to put it a little bit in perspective that, you know, the large units, where most of the customers are, should also have a heavy weight in our overall performance as a company. We have 17 million customers, but they're quite concentrated in Poland, in Turkey, in the Netherlands. These need to weigh probably a bit heavier than the other ones. That's a lot. There's no intention on hiding individual scores, if that's your question. Thank you a lot. Thank you. Before we go to the question from Mr. Spiel, I'd also just like to recognize and thank you for your compliment on the Audit Committee report. As he is also sitting in the room here today, I think it would be fair for me to also recognize Hans Schoen, who's the Chair of our Audit Committee, who has a very significant role in that. Of course, other members of the committee and the company support him in that activity. Thank you, Hans. Now to the last question from Herr Spiel. Actually, two questions with reference to prior years' construction projects and issues with water. I think he had two questions. The first is somewhat broad: Will NN be able to keep its head above water, given changes going on in climate? Number two, he has a specific question regarding a 45% target for Scope one, two, and three. Yep. Yeah, obviously, the second one is the same question that already answered on what is in scope for our 45%, and also what is not, versus what you call the full value chain. You know, nothing new to add to that question. I think on the flooding, yes, that is a very serious concern. I mean, as I said earlier, there is a. We had serious floods in Limburg, even more in Belgium than in Germany. We are in our modeling, in our ORSA, which is our own risk assessment, we are calculating that these events, unfortunately, will happen more often, so a higher frequency and also a bigger impact. There's two things, obviously, that are important then for us. One is, you know, the... When it happens, can we deal with it? The Limburg experience has taught us a lot, and that means that we're dependent on other reinsurance companies. We're also dependent on the government, and there's a lot of discussion ended up on who's responsible for what. The positive outcome of that is that we are in very good cooperation, now trying to sort out with the Dutch government on, and the Belgian government, on who's responsible for what. 'Cause insurance companies cannot fully cover flood risk, but we do cover, to a certain extent, certain risks. Where exactly, and we want to really avoid that customers get stuck between either the government or insurance companies. We solved it in Limburg by essentially just paying out more, but this is not a long-term sustainable solution. Like the terrorism pool, the anti-terrorism, which is also a difficult risk to insure, where we worked out something with the government, the plan is to do that also for flood risk. In terms of financial impact, this is what we take into account into our modeling. I mean, as big as the floods were and how much impact it had on people's lives, the financial impact in our case, after reinsurance, was EUR 40 million, which is still financially a very manageable number. Obviously, the impact for people's lives was huge. I think that's one part. The other part is prevention. What can we do in terms of prevention? Warning people, is there things we can do? This is also part of the Verbond scope, on what can we do in terms of prevention, when people live in certain areas. Then third, obviously, is the very big picture, which is around climate change, and what can we do in order to influence our footprint through our mainly our investments in our own footprint, which is the targets I spoke about. Thank you very much. With that, I would like to close this portion of the meeting, this agenda item, and move to the next agenda item. Yes, of course. Please. Yes, my name still is Knibbe. What I haven't heard today is the whole story from the financial officers, the CFO. I've been here for an hour now, and I still don't know whether you made a profit or incurred a loss. I do know that interpreting profit and loss numbers of insurance companies is far too complicated for me, so I would like to hear an explanation of the financials and also how to interpret the financials. The questions summarized were, first, did we make a profit? Perhaps more importantly, can you give a little bit of sense regarding our financials and how they should be interpreted? Yes, I can. Thanks for the question. When we look at our financials, and I agree, even as a CFO for an insurance company, it is not the easiest, and it's also not the easiest to explain. We really focus in reporting our financials on three items. It's the operating capital generation. We also have a target for that, and we actually performed pretty well on that last year. That went up by 8%. If you would exclude the impact of the sale that we, if you would include the sale of NN IP, if you would leave that out, it actually went up by 16%. It's an important metric to us because it shows what we, on a sustainable basis, actually have contributed to the company. It works from a long-term investment perspective, and it leaves out model and assumption changes, so it gives a bit of a more of an underlying view. The reason why it has increased is partly based on the increased interest rates, why we have seen it develop pretty strongly. We've also seen pretty good underlying business performance there. We also look at our solvency ratio and how that has moved. That has moved last year from 213% at the end of 2021, to 197%. What happened there is that essentially we did generate sufficient operating capital to cover all the capital return, the dividends, and the buyback that we have distributed to our shareholders, but we did see the impact of financial markets on solvency, and that was primarily driven by spread movements and by equity investments. If we look at the overall financial stability, we're very comfortable with the 197% of solvency. We also have a large cash capital buffer at the group of more than EUR 2 billion at year-end, plus we have a low leverage ratio, and that leverage ratio is in line with our credit rating ability. From the capital that we've generated, from the total balance sheet strength, we're very comfortable. On the operating profit level and on the net result level, there are two different trends. On the operating result level, we've seen a slight deterioration. That was, we ended at around EUR 1.7 billion, where we basically decreased by EUR 300 million versus the year before. That EUR 300 million decrease of operating result was half related to the sale of NN IP, because we didn't have those results anymore in our in our basis, and the remaining EUR 150 million was partly related to the businesses and partly related to the fact that in 2021, we had some extraordinary dividends in our life company from all private equity investment. From an operating result perspective, it was relatively stable despite all the turmoil that we've seen in the market. The net result is a different story. That actually decreased, that decreased quite a bit. That decreased by over EUR 2 billion, the main reason for that is what we've seen there, the impact of markets, which we don't take into account in the operating result. If interest rates, if interest rates rise, we've seen various impacts on the assets that we have. That has led to revaluations, for instance, in the case of our real estate portfolio, and the equity markets have also moved a lot, which has led to impairments on the equity markets. From a net result perspective, it was not a positive year. If we look at our balance sheet, I already added there that we're very comfortable with the solvency ratio, with the leverage position that we have. We have seen a fluctuation in the equity, which is also largely driven by the movements in the markets. Our equity position has actually come down quite a bit. We're not worried about that because it's market movements. If we look at the introduction of the new accounting rules, because from a financial community, people have been working really hard on the introduction of IFRS 17, we actually see that that introduction of new rules will make our equity more stable. What we've had in the past, flowing through our equity position, if interest rates would go up, then the value of our fixed income would come down, and we would have a negative impact on equity. On the liability side of our balance sheet, we would not have that re-rating. On the IFRS 17, that will be more aligned. We will not just have the large fluctuations in equity, it will be more stable. From that perspective, I would guess that from the annual report next year, which will be about 2023, under the new IFRS rules, we would see that the development of our equity position will be more in line with Solvency II and will be more stable. Net, net, I would have to conclude from operating capital generation perspective, our most important metric, it was a very good year. We still have a stable level of Solvency, good cash capital position, and a solid credit rating. Thank you. Yeah. Another question? Yes. I'll do this in Dutch," says the speaker. "My name is Birgit, I'm a retail shareholder. I'm also speaking on behalf of the environmental organization, Milieudefensie." Speaker needs to speak into the microphone for the interpreter here. I wanted to talk about the Paris Agreement. I just saw in your presentation a sort of S with all sorts of goals, and only at the very end did I see Scope 3 with the overall portfolio. As far as I know, the judge has issued a binding ruling that in 2030, you reduce your CO2 by 45% as compared to 2019. I was wondering, why wasn't that on the slide? I'd like to hear a yes or no. Are you going to commit to that, to also Scope 3, reduce your emissions by 45%? Because it was a binding judgment issued by the court. This was for Shell, so why wouldn't it apply to you? I'd like to hear a yes or a no. You say: Oh, that's difficult. Mortgage portfolio, difficult. How can we reduce emissions? Well, you are being paid for difficult issues, so I think, put your money where your mouth is. I also hear, well, we insure everything, but we do have a good deal with the government that we don't have to pay out too much. You are insuring the people who are breaking your windows or the people who are setting fire, because apparently you make more money with that than with insuring houses. I'd like to hear your comments and whether you're going to comply with the climate agreement. That's what it boils down to. Why not, if you're not going to do it? I don't want to hear that it's difficult. Excuse me. Thank you very much. Thank you, though. Couple things. I mean, if we look at our own. Obviously, we have set the targets on our own Scope one and two, which is, by the way, more than the 45%. Scope three, whether we like it or not, is a very complex monster because there's a lot of angles and not always that easy to measure and report. As you can understand, we are dependent also on other companies that we invest in, on their disclosures, in order for us to report a progress on it. We also want to avoid setting targets that sound really good, but that we don't know exactly how to achieve and influence. It is work in progress. I actually think we're at the forefront of this. I think we're doing a lot. We also, like I said, we still need some time for mortgages and some of the other items. I do expect that in the coming period, as you can see in the chart, even this year, that we will come out also with plans for those part of the portfolio. I couldn't follow your comment on insuring brand stichters and some of these other things, and on the flood risk. Maybe I should elaborate a bit what I meant. What happened in Limburg, is that we've seen people's houses that were flooded, unfortunately. You end up in a debate in that house that if this water is what we call horizontal water, meaning it comes from the Maas, which is then covered by the government, or is it coming vertically from the sky? Does it come from a little creek? It's not the Maas, and then we cover it. This all sounds very nice, but practically, you're standing in somebody's house that is flooded. There's a meter of water in there, and you're wondering, is this horizontal or vertical water? I mean, that doesn't work. What we ended up doing is then saying, "Oh, fine," and we've actually been in the newspaper with that as well, that we have extensively covered that and ended up just paying out instead of trying to figure out per house exactly what this was. What I was saying is this is not a sustainable way, because if we start covering everything, it just means we have to increase our premiums a lot. By the way, it's also the government has a facility for it. There are things we can improve, but we're very serious around taking our social responsibility here, and that's why we try to solve also the Limburg case. Also going forward, we need to find a more structural solution that works. On insuring, first of all, it's good to be aware we are primarily a retail and small SME insurance company, yeah. The large projects is not in our scope, but we still will look at how we can improve our footprint around our insurance, as you have seen in our chart. This is Beirut. I think you have a follow-up question. Yeah. Please. I just wanted to clarify. What I meant to say was that with the arsonists, that you insure them, you invest in oil, in the bio industry, and everything causing these floods. You are co-perpetrators. You are also responsible. You haven't done anything to stop these floods, nonetheless, you still have that in your portfolio, Scope three. You still invest substantially in oil, in the bio industry. If you stop doing that, then any case, people in Limburg, in the south of the Netherlands, would feel supported by you. I.e., that you are no longer investing in the climate crisis, and that perhaps, in the long run, you won't have to pay out as much insurance coverage. Then I'd like to hear whether your answer is a yes or a no, whether by 2030. Because I'm hearing a no. Could you actually say a no? I see no on the slide on the screen. Could you say that in 2030, you are or are not going to realize a 45% emission reduction in scope? ... scope question. We have Scope one and two, we have defined what we today mean. We have 45% under Scope 3. All right. Yeah, but you're asking about something in the future. As I was saying, we are still expanding our target setting on Scope 3. Today, this is the scope that we have. Yeah We have defined, which is the corporate investment portfolio for Scope. You don't have a vision for 2030. Explain that we are working for, towards the mortgage portfolio. We're looking at government bonds, which is, by the way, just a broader discussion, and thereby we will increase our scope for the investment part. We're actively investigating how to influence also our insurance footprint, which is also a work in progress. You'll see next year that we've also set steps there. Yeah. Thank you well. Yeah, we simply don't have that time. I think it's important to explain our policy. Our policy has been, and we've actually updated also our oil and gas policy, and it came out this week. What is important is that we are actively engaging with also with oil and gas companies. However, there is criteria. There's companies that what we call are not aligned with Paris, for example. Then there's front runners. There's companies that are actually very serious around getting to not only to Paris, but also to earlier targets on net zero. Those are the ones that we like to invest in, because we want to support these front runners in. These companies need time to actually get to a net zero policy. That is our policy, and that means that if companies, for example, an oil company that is like big oil, that is not aligned with Paris, you won't see any new investments from us in that company. We do support front runners in sectors, and that could be in cement, that could be in steel, it could be in oil, that are, in our view, serious around this transition. That's an important role for us because we are a long-term shareholder, and we can support those companies because they need time to get there. We all need time, and we simply have run out of time. Of course, we can wait for others to take steps before you take steps, but someone's got to start first, and it would be fantastic if you could realize that by starting to do that now. If you impose those requirements, those companies can act upon that, because this is really a deadlock. Who's going to do what? I strongly believe that with the right engagement, we can actually achieve more with these companies as a long-term investor by supporting them in a very difficult transition. I mean, I mentioned it earlier, I visited Fugro. Fugro was a company that eight years ago, three-quarters of their earnings was oil and gas. If I would follow your reasoning, it would have been a very good idea to dump the stock and say, "Not good." Fugro had very ambitious plans to say: We want to change our footprint, but we need time. If you look at today, two-thirds of Fugro's footprint is actually coming out sustainable. It's coastal protection, it's setting up wind parks in the ocean. I'm actually very pleased that in those eight years, we remained a shareholder, we engaged with them, and it gave them time to transition their company from an oil and gas-oriented company to a much more sustainable company. I think these are the type of engagements that can be very effective, but we can only do that if we're a shareholder. Had we exited eight years ago because they were in oil and gas, our right to speak would have been gone. Engagement is difficult, it takes time, but I still think it's more effective than, in this example, exiting a company simply because... Now, they need to be genuine about their commitments, and that is our judgment call that we need to make. Are they genuine or are they not? That's the judgment call that we make. We used to be able to look at companies and say: Can they make a good return? Now, we think, can they make a good return, but are they also genuine around climate, around social work, working conditions? That's the judgment calls that we need to make. Yeah. Yeah, also, welfare. Yes, our prosperity, I mean, it's simply, it costs too much. The climate crisis is taking place now. We need to act now, and we need to engage now. I understand your reasons to become shareholders in those companies. In fact, it's the exact same thing that I'm doing. I am in favor of that. I do think you can be stricter. It's not that you are a minor entity. I mean, you can make requirements and set conditions. I mean, all this greenwashing and all this nice talk, I mean, for Scope one and two, we're gonna tackle that, but it's all about Scope three, because that's a big chunk. We need to move towards that, and not only serve vegetarian sandwiches in the company restaurant. We take them also quite seriously, and I think we've had an opportunity to hear each other well and to explore it. So I'd like to suggest that we, once again, we commit to doing our part, playing our role. We take it very seriously. We're on a journey. We also would like to be a front runner. Just as you, we think engagement is the right approach, but we need to, you know, have a clear sense that the people that we're speaking with are genuine and want to work together with us for this shared goal. I think we have a shared concern, and as we've indicated, we want to do our part. We have a common goal. We have the same goal, the goal is the 2030, 45% reduction of carbon emissions. This is the goal. This is binding. This is the Paris Agreement. Everybody has to comply with the Paris Agreement. Everybody is committed to that. Why can't we just not hold each other accountable? Why do you say, "Oh, well, we might make it?" A yes or a no. Why don't you just simply say yes? I think you've asked, and some of your colleagues have as well, we appreciate the question. It's perfectly fine, we actually support that, we've given our answer. I think it's now probably time that we close this agenda item, we move on to the next item. With that, I'd like to close this agenda item. I'd like to, before we move to the next item, as I promised you earlier, present the present and represented capital today, which should come up on the screen. You're going to be seeing it more or less when I see it. We have 70.72% of the capital eligible for voting is present and represented today. Thank you very much. Now I'd like to move to item three, which is a proposal to give a positive advice on the 2022 Remuneration Report. This is a voting item. I'd like to refer to our 2022 Remuneration Report, specifically pages 122 through 138 of the 2022 Annual Report. I'd like to invite Hélène Vletter-van Dort, who's the Chair of the Remuneration Committee of the NN Group Supervisory Board, to give an explanation of item three, which is, as you know, is the first voting item on the agenda. Hélène? Thank you, Dave. I would indeed like to provide some context and background in relation to the Remuneration Report for the year 2022. Let me start by summarizing the key topics that we, as a Remuneration Committee, discussed last year. I will then talk about the decisions that were taken regarding the remuneration of the members of the Executive Board. The Remuneration Committee addressed a wide range of relevant topics last year. A key event during the year was saying goodbye to our previous CFO, Delfin Rueda, and subsequently welcoming Annemiek van Melick to the NN Group. Annemiek was appointed as member of the Management Board as of the 1st of June of last year, and as a member of the Executive Board and CFO of NN Group for a term of four years as of the 1st of July, 2022. As from the same date, she also serves as Vice Chair of the Executive Board and the Management Board. Remuneration Committee was closely involved in setting the overall remuneration package for Annemiek, which has been published on the NN Group website. She is remunerated in accordance with the Executive Board Remuneration Policy that we have in place, and which was approved in 2020, I should say, by the General Meeting. On behalf of the Remuneration Committee, I have engaged in an extensive stakeholder consultation with investors, with proxy advisors, a shareholder representative body, our Central Works Council, and representatives of Dutch trade unions. As suggested during the 2022 Annual General Meeting, I also spoke with NN Group trainees and young professionals within the company. An important topic that was addressed in these dialogues related to how we align the objectives and remuneration of our executive board members to the overall long-term strategy and strategic commitments of NN Group. Strategic targets around customers, employees, and society have been a part of the objectives of the executive board and linked to their variable remuneration for many years. Another important topic that was raised during the stakeholder consultation sessions was the wish for more transparency around the logic, the target levels, and the performance measurement of the individual objectives in the Remuneration Report. We made further steps this year to provide clear, concise, and useful information in relation to the performance of the members of the executive board against the 2022, so last year's financial and strategic objectives. I hope that that was seen. We would like to express our gratitude to all stakeholders who gave their valuable time to provide the Supervisory Board with their views and recommendations. We intend to continue these dialogues in the future. Now, let me move to the remuneration decisions that the Supervisory Board took for the members of the Executive Board. I'll take one step back. The primary objective of the remuneration policy for the Executive Board members is creating sustainable long-term value for all stakeholders, while keeping in mind that we need to be able to attract and retain expert leaders, senior staff, and other highly qualified employees. The remuneration of executives and senior staff is frequently benchmarked with relevant national and international peers, both within and outside the financial sector. The peer group consists of companies which are similar to NN Group in terms of number of employees, revenue, market capitalization, total assets, as well as international footprint. External experts, I should say, are asked for advice in determining the peer group. In line with the remuneration policy, the Supervisory Board aims to set the remuneration levels below market median for the executive board members. When determining the remuneration of the executive board members, Supervisory Board takes into account the interests of different stakeholder groups, our customers, obviously, our shareholders, employees, and different parties within broader society, both within and outside of the Netherlands. Supervisory Board has concluded that David has consistently shown strong leadership and performance in his role as CEO. The board intends to reappoint David Knibbe, I'll use your last name as well, as member of the Executive Board, and to designate him again as CEO and as a result, as Chair of the Executive Board for a term of four years, as will be formally notified to the general meeting under agenda item number 6. During 2022, Supervisory Board performed an assessment of the Executive Board's remuneration, taking into account, amongst others, the position compared to the market, internal pay relativities, and the interest and opinion of stakeholders. As I mentioned, input was obtained from various stakeholders. Consideration has also been given to related remuneration developments in, as well as outside NN Group. In view of all of this, and after a balanced and thorough assessment, the Supervisory Board has decided to increase David's base salary by 9%, with effect from first September last year. David's remuneration package has not been increased since his appointment, which happened on the 1st of October, 2019. Even after the announced increase, David's remuneration package continues to be positioned well below the market median and continues to be in line with the requirements of the executive board remuneration policy. I'd now like to move on to the succession of Delfin Rueda by Annemiek van Melick. At the end of 2021, NN Group announced that Delfin Rueda, after 8 years of service, would be succeeded by Annemiek van Melick, as CFO of NN Group on the 1st of July of last year. In this context, NN Group and Delfin jointly agreed the conditions for the termination of his contract. NN Group is grateful for Delfin's valuable contributions over a period of 8 years. Given that Annemiek was appointed as EB member as of the first of July, the Supervisory Board decided that there was no reason to grant an increase of the base salary for Annemiek for last year. At her appointment, Supervisory Board decided to award a sign-on bonus to Annemiek. Annemiek needed to step down from her management board role at her previous employer with immediate effect in October 2021 to make the transition to NN. As a result of contractual restrictions, Annemiek was only allowed to start at NN in June 2022, as I mentioned. This resulted in a somewhat forced period of in-between roles without remuneration. Based on these exceptional circumstances, in combination with her specific role and market value, Supervisory Board decided to grant Annemiek this sign-on bonus. The sign-on bonus will first vest after a full year of employment. Let me now move on to the variable remuneration decisions that the Supervisory Board took. The Executive Board's performance was assessed against the performance objectives as were set by the Supervisory Board in January 2022, so last year. Details of the performance assessments for the financial and the non-financial or strategic objectives have been provided in the remuneration report. Supervisory Board concluded that the Executive Board showed strong leadership throughout the year 2022, a year challenged by several economic and geopolitical uncertainties. Supervisory Board has assessed the overall performance of the Executive Board, and we have assessed that was well in line with expectations. Based on the results of the assessment of the achievements in relation to the financial and strategic performance objectives, Supervisory Board concluded to award David Knibbe a variable remuneration of 15.6% of his base salary, which corresponds with 97.2% of target. For Annemiek van Melick, a variable remuneration of 16.0% of her base salary, which corresponds with 101, sorry, 100.1% of the target. In his capacity of Vice Chair of the Executive Board and CFO, up to and including 30 June 2022, Delfin Rueda is awarded a variable remuneration of 15.4% of his base salary, which corresponds with 96.4% of target. Further details about the rationale behind these percentages can be found on pages 128 up to and including 134 of the remuneration report, as I mentioned. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide some context and background in relation to the remuneration report for the year 2022, and hand it over back to you, Dave. Thank you very much, Hélène. We'd like now to move to questions. As we did with the previous agenda item, we'd like to take all questions first, at which point we'll begin giving our answers. Are there any questions related to this agenda item? Mr. Keiner. Once again, please state your name and organization. Yeah, hi, my name is Keiner. I speak on behalf of VEB. With all the compliments, 20 years of experience doing these kind of things, actually, I overlooked that there was a sign-on bonus, that's like a red flag for a bull. We, as VEB, we really dislike and discourage any company to provide any kind of sign-on bonus. However, the kind of explanation that you've given seems reasonable to me. Can you help me, since I didn't read it, I was too fast, probably. How much was this sign-on bonus? One hundred and seventy-five thousand euro. That is more or less these couple of months that she was in between those jobs. That was, yeah. Nine months. To start down in October of 2021, and she was able to start here on the 1st of June. Okay, even though in principle, we are, as VEB, against any kind of sign-on bonus, I think the explanation is fair, so we don't mind in this case. Very exceptional case. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Keiner. Are there other questions regarding this agenda item? As I previously mentioned, the voting on this proposal to give a positive advice on the 2022 remuneration report, as any other agenda item, is open until the end of the meeting. With that, I'd like to close this item and move to the next agenda item, agenda item four. This is a proposal to adopt the annual accounts for the financial year 2022. This is a voting item. Here, I'd like to refer to the annual accounts for the financial year 2022, as included in the 2022 annual report, pages 157 through to page 300, as well as the presentation of David Knibbe, related to agenda item two. Just a brief explanation from my side. The annual accounts were drawn up by the executive board in English on the 8th of March, 2023, and have been available on the website of the NN Group as from the 9th of March, 2023. The annual accounts are also available free of charge at NN Group's head office for inspection by shareholders. The annual accounts were audited by the external auditor. He has issued an unqualified auditor report, which you can see on the pages 301 through 316 of the 2022 annual report. The supervisory board advises to adopt the annual accounts. Before introducing the external auditor, Dik Korf from KPMG, I note that NN Group has released KPMG from its obligation to maintain confidentiality in order for Dik Korf to be free to comment on the audit performed and on the auditor's report for the purposes of this meeting. The external auditor has an obligation to rectify, herstelplicht. This means that in case of statements in relation to the annual accounts or the auditor's report that might give a materially inaccurate view of the affairs of the company, Dik Korf may request that corrections be made either during this meeting or prior to the adoption of the minutes of this meeting. With that, I'd like to give the floor to Dik, please. Good morning. Thank you, David. My name is Dik Korf. I am the, as mentioned, the external auditor to NN Group, and on behalf of KPMG, and I'm happy to give you a brief presentation about our audit and about our audit opinion on the annual accounts 2022. Let me start with the scope of our work. Our auditor's report relates to the consolidated and company annual accounts of NN Group, which are, as just mentioned, up for adoption on the agenda of this meeting. We issued an unqualified audit opinion on those annual accounts. Next to our audits of the annual accounts, we also issued a so-called limited assurance report on non-financial information. That report is included in the annual report and mainly relates to a number of ESG-related disclosures. We also issued unqualified auditors' reports on regulatory returns, as prepared by the group and its regulated entities in the Netherlands on behalf of the Dutch Central Bank, and issued a review opinion on the interim accounts for half year 2022, as published by the group in August last year. We meet every quarter with the management board and the audit committee, and risk committee of the supervisory board. In those meetings, we discuss our audit plan and the progress made with the execution of our audit during the year and year to date, as well as our reporting on the procedures that we perform for internal purposes on quarterly accounts. I also have one-on-one sessions, at least each quarter, with the CEO, with the CFO, Chair of the Supervisory Board, Chair of the Audit Committee, to discuss current and evolving topics.... In all those meetings, I experienced active engagement and good responsiveness to the issues that we bring up, and our audit findings and observations. For our audit of the annual accounts, we applied a materiality of EUR 140 million, which is the same amount as last year and represents 1% of core equity. Misstatements in excess of EUR 7 million were reported to the management board and to the audit committee. We've allocated our materiality to all components in scope across the group. Based on the scoping that we applied, we realized a solid coverage of 92% of core equity and 90% of profit before tax. For more complex areas in our audit, we involved KPMG specialists in our team. For example, in the area of IT, cybersecurity, forensics, ESG reporting, actuarial, and valuations. In our auditor's report, you may have seen that we explained our response to topics such as the risks to fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations, and going concern. These did not result in significant findings. We also provided insights into our audit response to the risks related to climate change on the annual accounts. Climate change represents a key risk for the group, which, according to management, is expected to increase over the mid to long term, and which could affect the viability of the group's, strategy. For our audit, we therefore performed a risk assessment of the potential impact of climate change on the annual accounts to determine whether the annual accounts are free from material misstatement. In this regard, one could think, for example, of the impact on the valuation of assets and liabilities, but also the need, if any, to recognize provisions due to enhanced commitments to climate change. We concluded that climate change risks have no material impact on the 2022 annual accounts. We also read the disclosure of climate change-related matters in the annual report and considered material consistency with the annual accounts. We identified, as part of our audit, four key audit matters and discussed those with the management board and the audit committee. Key audit matters are those matters that, in our professional judgment, were of most significance to our audit and are therefore included in our auditor's report. Next to key audit matters, we reported various other matters that we deemed relevant to management and to the audit committee, such as our management letter with control observations and our findings on the group's preparation for the first time adoption of IFRS 17 and 9, as from financial year 2023. I refer to the note disclosure that the group included in the annual accounts about the impact of IFRS 17 and 9 on the opening balance sheet as of the first of January 2022, which is the date of transition to these new accounting standards. This brings me to the end of my presentation. Thank you for your attention, I'm happy to take any questions you may have. David? Thank you very much, Dik. Once again, we'll follow the same procedures. First, take any questions there may be for our external auditor. Yes, Mr. Keiner. Yes, we know who you are, but still, for the minutes, please, if you would state your name and organization. My name is Keiner. I speak on behalf of VEB. I do not have a question directly to the auditor, but based on his comments. I understand that his first priority key audit matter was the insurance liabilities, and do you have enough buffers to cope with these liabilities further into the future? I think in normal language, that's what it is. The conclusion of the auditor was that, literally, he says, "The reserve adequacy or the buffer showed enough margin, but it dropped significantly due to higher interest rates." I think it comes back to the explanation which Mrs. Annemiek van Melick gave in the beginning: equity markets, real estate, or turbulence in the markets, and so on. Now, the comment saying it dropped for this buffer, dropped significantly, the margin dropped significantly due to high interest rate. My question to you is: What would happen if we have another year like last year? Would it then still be a very solid margin? I would assume yes, because the solvency ratio is very high, but should we become worried if we have another year like in 2022? Thank you very much. I think Annemiek, I'll turn to you for the answer. We should not, because our solvency at 197% is sufficient to sustain that. It means if another 3 or 4 years like this? It should be sufficient to sustain it. That specific test will also not be performed anymore under IFRS 17, because now there will be far more alignment of the assets and the liabilities. Yep. With regards to interest rates, we really hedge our interest rates on an economic basis for cash flow matched. From a solvency perspective, which is the key metric. There was hardly any impact. We're confident there. Yes. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Other questions regarding this agenda item? If not, we'll close and move to the next agenda item. Thank you, Dik Korf. Items 4B and 4C will be combined in my introduction. Item 4B is a discussion item, the explanation of the dividend policy, Item 4C is a proposal to pay the dividend, which is a voting item. Here, I'll refer to our dividend policy as published on NN Group's website. Specifically, I'll give a little bit of explanation of the dividend policy. According to NN Group's dividend policy, NN Group intends to pay a progressive ordinary dividend per share. Under normal circumstances, NN Group intends to declare an interim dividend, which will be calculated at approximately 40% of the prior year's full year dividend, with the disclosure of its first half-year results, and to propose a final dividend at the annual general meeting of the shareholders. NN Group intends to pay dividends either in cash after deduction of withholding tax, if applicable, or in ordinary shares at the election of the shareholder. Dividend paid in the form of ordinary shares will be delivered from NN Group's treasury shares. If and to the extent the treasury shares are not used for the payment of stock dividend paid in the form of ordinary shares will be issued at the expense of the share premium reserve. NN Group intends to neutralize the dilutive effect of the stock dividend through the repurchase of ordinary shares. NN Group also intends to execute a recurring annual share buyback of at least EUR 250 million. Additional excess capital is to be returned to shareholders, unless it can be used for value-creating opportunities. When proposing a dividend or announcing a buyback, NN Group will take into account, among other things, its capital position, leverage and liquidity positions, regulatory requirements and strategic considerations, as well as the expected developments thereof. As I said, I'll now first move to the next agenda item before I give you the opportunity to ask questions or make remarks about our dividend policy. 4.C, proposal to pay out dividends, as I said, a voting item. I refer to the proposal to pay out a dividend, which has already been mentioned by David in his presentation, as well as was included in the convocation letter on page 4. This proposal is now officially put to a vote. In short, it's proposed to pay a final dividend of EUR 1.79 per ordinary share. Together with the interim dividend of EUR 1 per ordinary share that was paid in September 2022, this will result in a total dividend over 2022 of EUR 2.79 per ordinary share. The key dates for the proposed dividends are shown on the slide. Now I would like to give shareholders an opportunity to ask questions about either of the two agenda items. If you would please step to the microphone, state your name, I would appreciate it. Yeah, I apologize for that, but just for the minutes, everyone who's online also has an opportunity to hear your contribution. Yeah. Thank you very much. My name is Till Bruning. Thank you. For some time now, I've been annoyed with share buyback programs. This is a way that lacks imagination, a way of spending extra money. I would see it more as dividend. Also, given the large number of questions today, I wonder, why don't you invest this money in additional projects to make this planet more sustainable? I think that would be more useful than this way of, you know, purchasing your own shares back. It lacks imagination. Annemiek. 2022 was a special year in that regards, because we have a dividend policy of a progressive dividend per share, and then we have a recurring buyback ambition of EUR 250 million. Last year, we actually bought back quite a bit more, and that was related to the proceeds of the sale of NN IP, which were roughly EUR 1.7 billion, of which we actually also spent quite some money on acquiring new businesses. We bought a business, that is Heinenoord, that has added to the distribution capabilities that we have in non-life, which really strengthens our position there. We've also bought MetLife in Poland and Greece, which really adds to our business position and growth opportunities there. To the extent that we have access capital, we always look, how can we invest that organically in the company or inorganically to contribute to our strategic goals, be it financial, be it non-financial? To the extent we have access above that, we do return it to the shareholders, and we try and find the best mix there. Some shareholders really hold us for the capital return that we generate and have a strong focus on that, and others have a focus more on the contribution to the strategic targets that we have. Yes. Yeah, David, if you would. Yeah, maybe to add on that, hey, your point on why don't you invest it? I mean, we obviously, we're talking about a EUR 250 million share buyback. As we were discussing earlier, we invest a lot more in climate solutions, and we added another EUR 6 billion that we freed up to invest in climate solutions, which, you know, brings the total to more than EUR 11 billion. You know, they're not mutually exclusive. We're a stakeholder company, you need to take care of your shareholders and other stakeholders. It doesn't stop us from investing in climate, and that's why we also announced the extra EUR 6 billion that we announced there. ... Mr. Bruning, also from my side, thank you for your question. I fully appreciate your position, and you stated it quite well. The fact is, we have some shareholders who prefer returns in the form of buybacks and others who clearly prefer dividends, and we try to address the interests of the various shareholders. With that, I'd like to close agenda items 4B and 4C and move to the next agenda item. Items 5A and 5B will also be combined. Let me first introduce them. 5A is a proposal to release the members of the executive board from liability for their respective duties performed during the financial year 2022. Proposal 5B is a proposal to release the members of the supervisory board from their liability for their respective duties performed during the financial year 2022. Both of these items, separate items, are voting items. Once again, I'd like to refer to the convocation letter, page 4, where these items were explained. I'd like to open the floor to any questions, either of the 2 items. I see there are no questions. I'd like to close this item and move to the next agenda item. Item 6 is the intended reappointment of David Knibbe as a member of the executive board. This is a discussion item. I refer to the proposal as was included in the convocation letter on pages 4 and 5. Here, I think an explanation is absolutely warranted. The current term of appointment of David Knibbe as a member of the executive board ends as of the close of today's meeting. As announced on the 16th of February, 2023, the Supervisory Board gives notice of its intention to reappoint David Knibbe as a member of the Executive Board from the close of this meeting for a term of four years, which will end at the close of the annual general meeting in 2027. The Supervisory Board also has the intention to designate David again as CEO, and as a result, as Chair of the Executive Board for the same term. With the reappointment of David, his membership of, and position as Chair of the Management Board of the company also continues for the same term. The supervisory board intends to reappoint David Knibbe because of his deep understanding of, and experience with the company's businesses, the sector, and the markets in which the company operates, as well as the professional manner in which he fulfills his membership and chairperson of the executive board. His intended reappointment also serves continuity purposes. David Knibbe is a dynamic, customer-focused, and values-driven business leader with a strong commitment to the company's role in society. Under his leadership, the company has made good progress on the execution of its strategy while reporting a strong commercial and financial performance. This has created a solid foundation for long-term growth and sustainable value creation for all of our stakeholders. The intended reappointment of David Knibbe is in accordance with the profile of the executive board and management board of the company. The Central Works Council of the company has informed the supervisory board that it supports the intended reappointment of David Knibbe. Thank you for that. More information can be found in the convocation letter on page 5. With that, I'd like to open this item up for questions. For the record, I think that was the Herr Bruning, and the question was whether or not the CEO could say something about his own motivation. No, absolutely. We were talking about it in the beginning section. We set a high ambition for this company to be an industry leader on customer engagement, talented people, and our role in society. That was an ambition for 5-10 years. We're not even four years in there. I think some of you have pointed out that we're clearly not there yet. I think on all fronts, we've made progress, but we're not there yet. I'm very motivated to see how a listed company and financial even, can deliver value for all stakeholders by actually actively steering on customers, on people in our... and a positive role in society, and that translates then also into financial results and not the other way around. That is a long road, and I think we made good progress, but I certainly don't think we're done. For the coming period, I would expect that focus, we will continue, and new things will come. Already, AI, you brought up, I think there's a lot of new things also happening that enable us to speed up some of these developments, to strengthen some, to further strengthen the company. You know, as long as you still see a lot of opportunities to make progress, then I'm happy to stay. That, so I'm, I hope for support for that, and I'm personally very much looking forward to the next 4 years. Thank you, David. Before I move on to the next item, I'd also just like to take the opportunity to express my own appreciation for David, making himself available to serve for another term as CEO of the NN Group. His leadership has been impressive, and just as you heard in his answer here, always placing a strong focus on delivering value to all of our stakeholders while ensuring the NN Group maintains its strong position. David, thank you for your dedication, for your commitment, and for your willingness to continue. I think on behalf of the supervisory board and on behalf of stakeholders, we're looking forward to it. Thank you. I'll close that item, and I'll move to the next item 7, which is a voting item. This is a proposal to amend the level of the fixed annual fee for the members of the supervisory board. I'd like to ask Hélène Vletter-van Dort, Chair of the Remuneration Committee of the NN Group Supervisory Board, to give an explanation of this item. Thank you, Dave. Let me put the microphone on, that might be helpful. I would indeed like to provide some context and background in relation to the proposed amendment, which was included in the convocation letter on page 5. The remuneration policy for the members of the Supervisory Board, including the remuneration for the individual Supervisory Board members, was last adopted by the general meeting with effect from the first of January 2020. The policy determines that the level of the fixed annual fee for the Chair, the Vice Chair, and members of the Supervisory Board and its committees, is aimed to be below the market median level for comparable positions in relevant markets. After reviewing the current remuneration for the members of the supervisory board and taking into account the results of the benchmark analysis that were performed by Willis Towers Watson, which is an independent external provider, the supervisory board proposes to amend the fixed annual fees to bring the fees closer to the market level while still remaining below the market median. When considering the proposed amendment of the fixed annual fee level, supervisory board consulted, again, various stakeholders, including shareholders, a shareholder representative body, a proxy advisor, employees, and regulators. I would like to once again thank all of these stakeholders for their time and willingness to provide their views and perspectives. Now, taking into account the results of the benchmarks, as well as the views and perspectives of those stakeholders, the following amendments to the fixed annual fee level are proposed. I'm gonna read this. For supervisory board chair, the vice chair, and members, an increase of the fees with EUR 6,000 per year. For the chair of a committee, an increase of the fees with EUR 3,000, and for a member of a committee, an increase of the fee with 1,500, so EUR 1,500. In line with statutory requirements, the Central Works Council of NN Group was requested to give advice in relation to the proposed amendment. We greatly appreciate the involvement of the members of the Central Works Council and thank them for taking the time to engage with us in a conversation, which is aimed at a solid understanding of the proposal. The Central Works Council has issued a positive advice regarding the proposed amendment of the fixed annual fee levels. A full review of the content of the remuneration policy for supervisory board members will be conducted later this year, after which the policy will be submitted to the general meeting for adoption at the annual general meeting next year, so in 2024. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain the proposed amendment, I hand it over to you again, Dave. Thank you, Hélène. Any questions on this item? If not, I will close this item and move to the next agenda item. Now I'd like to refer to items 8 A, I, 8 A, double I, 8 B, 9 and 10, which I will combine in my explanation. These remain separate items for separate voting. You also will have the opportunity to ask questions about any of these items after my explanation. Again, I need to read this. Apologies, but I have to get it right. Item 8, point A, point I, is a proposal to designate the executive board as the competent body to resolve to issue ordinary shares and to grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares. Item 8.A.2.I is a proposal to designate the executive board as the competent body to resolve to limit or exclude preemptive rights of existing shareholders when issuing ordinary shares and granting rights to subscribe for ordinary shares, pursuant to agenda item 8.A.I. 8.B is a proposal to designate the executive board as the competent body to resolve to issue ordinary shares and to grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares by way of a rights issue. Item 9 is a proposal to authorize the executive board to acquire ordinary shares in the company's share capital. Finally, item 10 is a proposal to reduce the issued share capital by cancellation of ordinary shells. Sorry, proposal to reduce the issued share capital by cancellation of ordinary shares held by the company. Again, each of these is a voting item. I'd like to refer to our convocation letter, specifically pages 6 and 7. You've seen these items before, very standard on our agenda, and they've been submitted to you in these forms in previous years. Given the extensive explanation to these agenda items as included in the convocation letter, I'll assume there's no need for further explanation up front or repeat this explanation. I'd like to now open the floor for questions regarding items 8 to 10. I see there are no questions. I'd like to close these agenda items. Note that with item 10, which was the last voting item on the agenda. In a few moments, we will close the voting. I'm gonna pause for just a second, so if you've not already cast your votes, please do so now. With that, we have. I'm sorry, I see a question. Thank you. Please state your name. Just one question, because I believe the meeting has almost come to a close. My name is Luca. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a member of Milieudefensie. When I was a small boy, I knew Nationale-Nederlanden because it was a sponsor of the Dutch national team. Edgar Davids, we know the picture of him in front of the office in Rotterdam, and I remembered 2002 when the Dutch squad, unfortunately, didn't qualify for the World Cup in Japan and Korea. The slogan at the time was: "Next time, we'll be part of it. We'll be back." A couple of years ago, I started to study business plans of large companies, including insurance companies, and that's how I found out that Nationale-Nederlanden is on the list of the 30 most polluting companies in the Netherlands. My question is, since we haven't yet heard a clear yes or no, will Nationale-Nederlanden comply with the Paris Agreement? Will NN, in 2030, at the very least, reduce its carbon emissions by 45%, in 2030, in all Scope 1, 2, and 3? I hope to hear a clear yes. Otherwise, next time, the colleagues of Milieudefensie will simply attend the next AGM again. Answer this. We're going to move to actually the following parts of the agenda. We've had this question before. I appreciate that we all have an interest in this. I'll ask David to give a short response. We'll move forward. Thank you, David. Yeah. No, indeed, we've had this question before. In terms of answering, I have nothing to add to my answer that I gave a few times now. We've been very clear on the targets around the 45%, the 25% in the scope that pertains. Also, we've been clear that we plan to extend that scope in the coming period. Whether that is your full value chain or not, I suspect it is not, but let's see. That is more up to your judgment than ours. We've been very clear on what is in scope, what is not in scope, and what you can expect in the coming period for us to do. Yeah, indeed, on the, the sponsoring, I still every now and then regret that we're not a sponsor of the national team anymore, but I didn't realize the slogan was, "We'll see you, we'll be there next time," because we didn't, huh? Because in 2006, we also didn't qualify. Yeah. Anyway, the, that was it. Thank you, Mr. I'd just like to state that we'd be happy to see you here, next year to continue our discussion. I'd like to note now that we have closed the voting. We will share the voting results with you just before the close of this meeting. Thank you all very much for voting. I'll now move to item 11, which is any other business before the close. I'd like to ask the shareholders if there are other matters that you would like to raise or questions you'd like to raise. Seeing none, we'll now move to the voting results. I hope, meanwhile, that that is possible. We'll wait for them to show up on the screen. You see here on the screen the results from voting items 3 through item 7. Just looking at the results, I can see that all of these items have been approved by the shareholders with a significant majority. Thank you for that. We'll now move to the next slide, where you'll be able to see the voting results of the proposals eight through 10. Here also, I see for each of the proposals, the shareholders have approved them with a significant majority. Once again, thank you very much for th at. This means that all items have been adopted, all voting items have been adopted by the general meeting, and I'd like to acknowledge and thank you for your support. As we move to close the meeting, I also would like to take a moment to acknowledge that this is also the last meeting where Hélène Vletter-van Dort will be sitting here with us, as Vice-Chair and member of the Supervisory Board of the NN Group. Hélène, since your appointment to the Board in 2015, you've been an invaluable asset to the team, part of the team, bringing your dedication, expertise, and insight to the table. We're incredibly grateful for all the hard work and effort you've put in, and we'd like to express that thanks in many ways we can't express it enough. As Chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Nomination and Corporate Governance Committee, you've been a driving force behind our efforts to maintain the highest standards of governance and transparency. On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board of the NN Group, and I know the entire NN Group, I'd like to express my deepest appreciation to you for your outstanding service. Thank you. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and thank you again for everything you've done, Hélène. Thank you. Before I close the meeting, there are a few other announcements I'd like to make. Pauline van der Meer Mohr, member of the Supervisory Board, will succeed Hélène as vice chair of the Supervisory Board. As of the close of this meeting, the Supervisory Board will consist of seven members. The Supervisory Board has decided to lower the number of its members to seven. This means that currently there are no vacancies to be filled. The Supervisory Board has decided to combine the Remuneration Committee and the Nomination and Corporate Governance Committee into a Nomination, Remuneration, and Governance Committee as of the close of this meeting. This committee will be chaired by Pauline van der Meer Mohr. Lastly, I'd like to inform you that as of the close of this meeting, Hans Schoen, currently Chair of the Audit Committee, will be succeeded in this role by Rob Lelieveld, while Hans will continue to be a member of the Audit Committee. This is in line with our Supervisory Board succession plan. Last closing announcements. The draft minutes of this meeting will be published on the company's website within three months, and the final voting results will be posted on the company's websites within a few days.